The Focus Cycle
As you might have noticed, the review isn't up tonight. It'll be up tomorrow, and since Saturday is technically a part of the same week, I haven't flubbed my New Years Resolution yet. (Beyond that, the goal is more to make 52 total reviews this. If I skip a week, I'm supposed to do two in the next week). But as for tonight, I want to talk about something else. Something a little bit more problematic. I think I've described this before, but it's... hard to convey to a person who doesn't have this problem. The problem lies with focus. I don't know if this is Asperger's Syndrome, or ADD (which I'm going to get tested for), but here is the situation: I come up with this idea and it sparks a project. I spend weeks to months working on this project, developing things and making up how it should go along. I work on it diligently and passionately. Then a new idea comes along and it steals (I am not being poetic, there's no other way to describe it beyond theft) the focus, the passion, etc. Trying to do the first thing again becomes slow, a slog, stilted, etc. I could... describe it like ADD, but on a scale that interest shifts in months, not minutes. I've often said that this keeps me feeling like Professor Calamitous, from Jimmy Neutron, except it's a lot less... funny. When it comes to creativity, it's hard for me to think of a project that I've actually finished. What about Little Cassie? The first draft may be done, but the project isn't what I'd consider finished. The actual proofreading that I have done can easily attest to that. It's still in the middle of the revising of the first draft. The only things that I have been able to finish are screenplays and short stories that can be finished in one sitting, which is unfortunately... not enough for me. It's a crutch, it really is. It's a way to sidestep the problem and many of these projects need bigger and bigger scales. One of the problems is that nothing ever seems like a bad idea at the beginning. And I don't mean "ooh, this sounds like a good idea, I'm going to write a novel trilogy, each containing 150,000 words." I mean, hmm... this idea about a man who swore that he'd stay a bachelor for all his life meets his kids who have come back from the future sounds like a really interesting idea. There is so much creative potential with it, as the future is just a blank pallet. Maybe this is what the kids wear and do for entertainment. There are plenty of jokes to tell about this scenario: Kid 1: Sorry, we're not allowed to tell you about the future Man: Fine then, I'm not going to tell you about the past. Kid 2: Oh for the love of God, hallelujah!. All we had to do to get him to stop was to go there! And there's so much poignancy that it could have. There's a lot I can say about trying to guess what people from the future will say about our time: what practices disgust them, and how we're being short-sighted. I'm on to developing a story with characters and jokes and everything. While this is happening, the last project that I've been working on for months produces no ideas, like a faucet turned off. Maybe occasionally it'll drip an idea here or there, but it's nothing that could sustain an entire novel or a screenplay. You ever hear of the saying one track mind? It's kind of like that, except the track keeps changing every once in awhile. "So you just got bored with your other stuff/thought it wasn't working out?" No. That's the first misconception I want to take out. If I thought a project wasn't working out, then I would just drop it. A lot of people have problems with getting through the middle or boring parts of their huge projects, and while that doesn't help... it's not the issue. Let's go with the example of Young Commando. ''Awhile ago that was my passion project and I was really into spoof movies to the point that that's what I primarily talked to my friends about and quite possibly really annoyed them. I wrote one third of the script to a screenplay. And then what happens? That little voice in your head says... hey, you know what would make an interesting idea? A story about a sentient hallucination. We'll make it a romance novel/screenplay/whatever. It sounds kind of weird, but we can poke and prod how people think of this issue. It can make the audience really question what's right and what's wrong, and blah blah blah. Looking back months later, what I wrote for Young Commando, it's still hilarious. I didn't even end it on one of those "boring parts." It just ended in the middle of a scene because I was done for the day. I still think that it was a really great idea and what I came up with it is funny and I want to finish it. But when I try to, it's almost like my brain is frustrated and it's throwing a temper tantrum that we're not working on the project that ''it wants to work on. "So... just don't start any new projects/ideas until the old ones are done" First of all, let's start with the obvious.This: Hellspawn - Pilot is, I think, one of the best things that I ever wrote. It was done spur of the moment due to this cycle and it turned out really well. I finished it in time thank goodness because the desire of that universe and to continue it hasn't come back. Or at the very, the brain faucet isn't pouring that particular liquid. For starters... I've constantly got to be worried. If I write this thing down now it could be the best thing I ever do, and if I don't, I may never be interested in it again. But... "not starting a new project" isn't... exactly how this works. Ideas come from anywhere and everywhere. Read about this interesting concept, bam I want to do a novel around it. And this is the important part: ideas rush and flood to that one concept. Ideas come from anything and everything. Reading, doing my job, having moments of silence, sitting on the toilet. There's no way to stop a gear shift that wants to happen. Even if I stopped doing new projects and completely ignore these ideas, I'd only have a few options. Number 1: force my way through, 100% of it. Anyone who works in any creative field knows that the places you force your way through generally turn out to be the worst. You make the most inspired things, and you definitely have to revise afterwards. Let me explain that a lot of what I want to do is write comedy. And writing bland uninspired comedy is essentially the equivalent of writing negative amounts of material. Number 2, I could wait until my brain spins around again and wants to actually finish something. That happened with Little Cassie, but I'm not exactly a gambling person, and once again, that doesn't solve the problem. And like I said, it also left Little Cassie. Three times now. It very rarely comes back on the revising stages, by the way. Number 3: I could rush. Everything. Unhindered, I can write 10,000 words in one day. A novel is 50,000. A screenplay tends to be 22,500. This is focusing on nothing but speed. It's theoretically possible for me to write an entire novel in... two weeks (this includes prewriting). This is not a good strategy, for what should be obvious reasons. And none of them actually solve the issue that I'm dealing with - staying focused on one project. Staying focused and interested and creative on one thing for as long as it takes. You also have to remember that my medium is writing. A novel is the most lengthy piece of art, and can take over a year to write. The record for longest time to write a novel is like ten years or something. It's also common wisdom that you do not change genre or tone during one. You will be writing the same thing, for a year. At least. What do I want? To... actually be able to finish this. I don't know if it's an ADD thing or an Asperger's thing or just a "me" thing. It doesn't matter, I'm looking for advice. Some of this is discipline, but all discipline can do in the end is force a horse to some water that it doesn't want to drink. I don't know, does anyone else have this problem? And if so, I'd like to know every single technique you've used to fight it... because it's really starting to affect my daily life. Creative projects aren't the only thing that this seems to affect. Category:Miscellaneous